You've been on the weight loss roller coaster for months, even years. At first you may have noticed some positive changes, such as the scale moving down or your clothes fitting better, but how long did that last? What did you do to keep getting results? Did you slice calories in half or double up on the cardio? Did you do both at the same time?
These seem like the logical thing to do, but what happens is your body interprets the lack of calories and the increase cardio as a form of stress on the body and it protects itself by holding on to body fat and even storing it for survival. As depressing as this may sound, you can lose fat effectively and safely.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number One - Failure to Set Goals
As redundant as it may sound, you must set goals in order to be successful. Some can set mental goals and accomplish them while others need a written contract to themselves.
Set daily, weekly, and monthly goals to keep the challenge alive and results plentiful. The more small successes you see along the way, the easier it will be to stay on track and make body fat a thing of the past.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number Two - Failure to Accurately Track Calories and Macronutrients
Many times someone new to losing weight can have success by simply eliminating the obvious junk food. Others can see great changes in portion control. Obviously, both of these tactics are useful, but both will plateau eventually. The body adapts quickly for survival reasons. When the body catches on to the fact that you are either eating less, exercising more, or both, it will quickly readjust its inner program to meet those needs and this is when it may seem that your diet has failed.
The next successful step is to calculate your daily calories and macro nutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrates) to see what you take in and how much you need. You may be surprised at how little or how much you eat. Many times when you are able to view your food intake on paper, it's a completely different story.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number Three - Skipping Meals
While it may seem the most likely fat loss method, skipping meals does more harm than good. When you skip a meal, the body thinks your body is experiencing a time of famine, and therefore it takes precautions and holds on to existing body fat for survival and when you do eat it uses that meal as shelter also.
To combat this dilemma, you should eat a small balanced meal every three hours to keep the body from thinking it is starving. The constant supply of nutrients keeps the body functioning properly and raises the metabolism.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number Four - Lack of Adequate Water Consumption
Water is essential to health and fat loss, and dehydration will kill you before starvation will. That's how vital it is!
Water metabolizes stored body fat, it aids in digestion, transportation, and absorption of vitamins and minerals. It controls body temperatures, prevents dehydration, and removes toxins from the body.
You should drink adequate water daily for health and fat loss. If consuming more water is new for you, then start out with eight ounces of water every hour until you build up to a gallon a day.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number Five - Indulging in low-fat, low-carb, low-sugar goodies, assuming they are safe.
This has to be one of the biggest mistakes made by those trying to lose weight, these so called "safe" cheats. They may appear harmless, but the fact is, they are loaded with hidden dangers, such as fat, carbs, sugar, sugar-alcohols, etc. Not only that, the serving size is very small, and when you are consuming more than the serving listed, those calories add up very fast! It's best to save such treats for your designated cheat day.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number Six - Taking little cheats each day or every other day, and not taking them into account
This is another disaster waiting to happen. Those little insignificant cheats add up to a big train wreck. It sneaks up on you and before you know it, your entire program is ruined. You may think you have been following your fat loss program word for word, thinking that little bite size SnickersŪ Monday was so small, that it didn't affect a thing, and those few small bites of Little Debbie'sŪ dangers meant nothing, but they all show up in the big picture, and it's not pleasing to look at on stat day.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number Seven - Working out too much
This may sound off the wall, but yes, you can work out too much, especially if your program is designed around your stats and activity level. If you add more cardio to what is already prescribed, it's a disaster waiting to happen.
Logic says to lose weight you must burn more calories than you consume, right? Well, yes and no. It goes deeper than that. Don't forget the quality of a calorie or a macro nutrient (protein, carbs, fat).
If you eat quality food (unprocessed), then your body can use that and you won't need as many calories or as much cardio. Processed foods (boxed rice, pasta, frozen meals) are not used by the body 100% and end up as toxins in the body. They build up, weigh you down, drain your energy, and make you have to do twice as much cardio than if you were eating real/fresh food items that the body can actually use.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number Eight - Not eating enough throughout the day
Many people think since they are eating something every three hours that they are eating enough. This isn't always true. Many make the mistake of eating too little each meal, such as yogurt and an apple. First, it's a processed meal, second it's lacking complete protein, and lastly, it's not enough to feed an ant. Feed your body enough real food every three hours.
Weight-Loss Downfall Number Nine - Avoiding certain macro nutrients like the plague
First everyone was frightened of fat, now carbs are the enemy. I can only imagine when the day comes that they will try to say protein holds the reputation for making people overweight.
All macro nutrients have their place in a fat loss program. While there is benefit to lowering certain kinds of fat and perhaps limiting carbs, far too many are going about it in the wrong manner and slicing them completely out of their diet, causing their body to rebound and sometimes some unpleasant side effects can take place as well.
Before you go off cutting essentials from your program, be sure you understand how they are used by the body and the pros and cons of limiting or eliminating them. There are safe ways to go about lowering certain macro nutrients, and pulling them completely from the diet in a one shot process is not the answer.
Weight-Loss Downfalls Conclusion
These are just a few examples of things that could be destroying your best weight loss intentions and they may be small errors that you don't even realize you are making.
About The Author
Karen Sessions has been in the fitness industry since 1988 and is a certified personal fitness instructor and specialist in performance nutrition. She is a nationally qualified natural female bodybuilder, holding numerous titles in the southern states including two overalls.
Karen has written six e-books on fitness. She also writes articles for several fitness websites, and distributes two monthly newsletters regarding weight loss and female bodybuilding.
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These seem like the logical thing to do, but what happens is your body interprets the lack of calories and the increase cardio as a form of stress on the body and it protects itself by holding on to body fat and even storing it for survival. As depressing as this may sound, you can lose fat effectively and safely.
You should drink adequate water daily for health and fat loss. If consuming more water is new for you, then start out with eight ounces of water every hour until you build up to a gallon a day.
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